


for all that it's worth

by qactus



Category: ChroNoiR, Nijisanji
Genre: Alternate Universe, Freeform, M/M, Reincarnation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-15
Updated: 2021-02-15
Packaged: 2021-03-17 15:21:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,549
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29473878
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/qactus/pseuds/qactus
Summary: If Kuzuha had to guess, heaven must have been missing one of their angels too soon.(A nonlinear love story told through different worlds and one of their own.)
Relationships: Kanae/Kuzuha (Nijisanji)
Comments: 5
Kudos: 93





	for all that it's worth

**Author's Note:**

> this revolves around the cnr lore, so it'd be helpful to look into that before reading if you don't already know, hence the nature of the _major character death_ warning. but endgame isn't inherently the "death" of a character himself, if that makes anyyy fucking sense asdgfkdhl
> 
> [♫](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v2w8Cm0ZZ2s&ab_channel=SharonRamos) / [♫](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vjXaddTMecc&ab_channel=CheapVinylRecordsUK)

Even in death, Kanae smiles at him like he's done something good, praise ready at the back of his teeth like the last bullet in a forfeited gun. Immortality can’t save him from shame this great because not dying isn’t surviving, and surviving isn’t guaranteed living: it’s dying every morning he opens his eyes to a half vacant bed with sunlight clinging to all the wrong places. Filling the hollow where Kanae’s soft fingers used to tremble against. A dip in his ribcage, the warm exhale between parted lips, the silences in between.

Once upon a time, he’d scattered bits of himself throughout the dusty shelves of Kuzuha’s bones like he belonged there, until Kuzuha learned to carry his weight like his own.

Once upon a time, Kuzuha belonged to someone.

Heart barely braced for this reality, he’s floating among cosmos in some odd funk he can’t be bothered to come down from. For someone who's never had to count the days in his life, clarity is exactly two days ago before sunset to the sound of Kanae’s laughing face as he pinned Kuzuha to the ground by the shoulders, buried in a bed of flowers that could bloom right through him—much like Kanae now, blanketed in white lilies that look as gentle as the last words that died on his lips.

If Kuzuha had to guess, heaven must have been missing one of their angels too soon.

He narrows his eyes at the bite marks left on Kanae’s neck from his own vice, a last ditch effort for hope when all else failed. Tries not to think of the taste of his blood stained forever on his tongue like the thickest ink. He curses God and prays that he’ll finally go to Hell for bad mouthing the big guy himself because it’s only a death by retribution that will pay the price for his muddled conscience from selfish mistakes, a means for salvation from an eternity of lifetimes spent chasing a Kanae who will never remember the home he made in Kuzuha’s arms.

So if all else fails, what do you do with second chances that come after the conclusion?

You make every beginning worth its end.

“I'll be there for you,” Kuzuha promises and kneels down on one knee against the casket in promise. “I'll always be there for you. I'm—"

  
  
  


“—here for you.”

There's a hole in his chest where his heart should be, but the pain he feels stems from something that isn't his. Kuzuha tightens his grip around the cool barrel of the gun pressed against the bullet wound to hold it firm in its place. Shot through him only moments ago, the crack of its fire still ringing in his ears, vibrations shaking all throughout his skeleton—it’s a weird thing seeing life flash before your eyes when you know you’ll live forever. 

Kanae is dying, yet Kuzuha's mind occupies a delicate sort of bittersweet joy for this sort of circumstance that comes few and far between, seeing a face he's spent so long missing and trying his best not to think about another century without his warmth. For old time’s sake, he listens to the soft pattering of Kanae’s heart and finds himself blooming like the first spring in an everlasting winter. There’s something beautiful about the sound of a fighter this small, beating a slowing rhythm to hold the light in his eyes.

Kanae slumping forward with his head on Kuzuha’s shoulder, he looks valiant in his downfall, one hundred feet tall of honor and a chest full of pride despite being knocked down on both knees. There are two holes in his neck the size of dimes from another vampire with hair almost as white as his, but Kuzuha doesn’t mention that his glistens chrome in the night, not grey, and tightens his hold around Kanae’s hand when his grip begins to slacken. 

What he really needs is for time to stop. What he needs is more time to memorize the feel of these hands against his own.

“Do I know you?” Kanae asks, barely above a strained whisper.

Kuzuha says, “No.”

“But I’ve seen you,” Kanae squints with conviction and laughs offhandedly. “In my dreams, maybe.”

“Probably.”

There’s nostalgia on Kanae’s skin that smells like powder under the dirt and blood staining his uniform, the pristine material now wrought with wrinkles. In this same position ages ago with Kanae’s affection pressed into his neck, sweet and darling but only temporary in its warmth from a wavering timeline, they’ve come full circle in an unending cycle of highs and lows. The last time with God breathing down his neck. This time, an entire country’s pride and honor.

Trapped between heaven and hell, utopia is the setting sun at the horizon where Kanae first kissed him.

“It wasn’t you,” Kanae says after a thoughtful pause, shaking his head in realization or nuzzling the comfort of Kuzuha’s shoulder. He isn’t sure, but the gesture burns through him like liquor.

Kuzuha's silence is all the reply he needs. His hands might be shaking, but between him and this Kanae, it's nothing personal. It shouldn’t be, and he won’t know the truth of it. He's just some vampire more willing to cradle an open wound than devour its source, the outlier of his kind with a knack for basic humanity. Because in this fleeting moment, the last thing Kanae needs to feel is guilt for the blank spots in his mind he can’t diagnose.

What he needs is the touch of someone who was there for him like he always wanted to be wanted.

"Let go," Kanae tries to retract his hand.

"No.”

“Then hold me tighter.”

The fear of loss washes over him like a cold sweat before it eases up. The way Kanae stops struggling, Kuzuha knows he’s picked up on the signs that they’ve crossed paths before, his unwillingness to put even an inch between them, how he clings to his fingers all clumsy and unaligned like he’ll slip away with the slightest shift in movement. 

Between the two of them, Kuzuha won't let Kanae know he's hurting the most. 

Kuzuha winds his arms around Kanae’s middle and scrapes sharp nails up his spine, dipping along the knobs with the hands of an artist admiring his craft. When Kanae finally collapses against him, it’s because he wants to, neither surrender nor submission. Just a need to seek security in something familiar on foreign ground to make the weight of exhaustion easier to carry on slumped shoulders and swollen calves.

“It wasn’t you,” Kanae repeats.

"It wasn't me,” Kuzuha relents.

"All this gourmet blood gone to waste, huh," Kanae drawls with an exaggerated sigh and blindly reaches up to cradle his jaw. Doesn’t realize it’s muscle memory that lands those fingers along Kuzuha’s jawline on the first try with practiced ease. "Are you hungry? My treat."

"Don't be cocky," Kuzuha brushes his fingers through the hair at Kanae's nape, the strands darker than he remembers but no less soft. "I only drink blood within minutes of spilling it, and I’m afraid dinner's gotten cold."

"You'll regret it if I live through this," Kanae teases weakly. "I might not give you a second chance."

"Then live," he says simply.

"Oh, to survive death," Kanae hums. "Who am I, God?"

"Close quarters," Kuzuha spreads his hands over Kanae's shoulder blades like a pair of white-feathered wings, crystal under a sky full of stars. "You're not as ugly."

"I'll make sure to pass that on."

"Please."

Kanae's chuckle twists into a wince that translates like needles up Kuzuha’s spine. Anguish this deep must be a sign of his empathy for humanity, inevitable in its exposure in overwhelming amounts of quiet adoration from someone with blushing knees and rainwater eyes. Comforting in some ways, the growth that it implies. He gets choked up for a second so long it burns his throat raw and turns to cough it better, putting on his toughest face to ward off the tears threatening to crumble it.

"Ow," Kanae hisses, one side of his face screwing up. The pain is apparent, but there’s something else there, too. A little playful, a little mischievous, hidden at the corner of his mouth like knives. He says, "A bite this bad, you'd think he wanted to fuck me."

"Stupid," Kuzuha snorts and finds some relief there. "You were just convenient for a vampire with an appetite."

"And you?"

"What?"

"What am I to you?"

Beautiful. Alive. Here—

Kuzuha says, "A pain in the ass."

—everything. Everything.

"Can’t be too bad," Kanae says. “I’m dying.”

“Exactly.”

Kanae’s eyes droop, the measured exhale that escapes him deflating his lungs like torn parachutes. Legs giving out with the rest of his strength, he relies mostly on Kuzuha to keep him up.

"I'm so tired,” Kanae sighs. “Will you wake me up in five?”

"'S too bad," Kuzuha turns his head, this time to discreetly nudge his nose against the crown of Kanae's hair. "You're not sleeping till you buy me a new jacket."

"It's past midnight."

"A wallet will do."

Kanae pauses to consider something. "I don't know where my wallet is."

"Then you're stuck with me," he declares with an air of finality.

"Then tell me a story," Kanae says. "Tell me your favorite one."

He's fading into a numb space that barely occupies consciousness, the feeling in his hands and the history they cling onto slipping through the gaps. Kuzuha will never get used to this, the warmth slowly disappearing under starved fingertips, the subtle press of ribs against his own, tucked against him not by coincidence like the gears of a clock. The small curve of a smile on Kanae’s upper lip that never quite fades with the rest of him.

Cornered into thinking about all the things he once ran from and wanting to run back, he hates this the most, forcing himself to cling onto the hope of the rising sun for a new tomorrow.

"About a boy that lived to touch the sky?"

"About a love so deep it stained red."

For once, he prays for the silence not to come.

"Idiot," Kuzuha shuts his eyes and just knows that Kanae's blood on his hand is the prettiest shade of red. "You're my—"

  
  
  


"Favorite love story."

"Dracula?" Kanae laughs into his hand like he always does, the side stained black with ink. "Does that classify as a love story?"

"Quenching a thirst for blood," Kuzuha hums and licks his lips, voice trailing off lazily into the crisp air, a lull in this comforting ease they’ve settled into. "Can't think of anything more romantic."

“No?”

“No.”

Pillowed in Kanae’s lap, somehow Kuzuha has made his way to heaven with an entire library of sins piled on his bony shoulders just waiting for ruin. Kanae leans over him to rest his elbows on the wooden floor table, pen eagerly scratching across paper with the word he must have been racking his brain for in the last hour. The sound is subtle enough to tickle his ears, therapeutic in its enthusiasm as he listens to the physical rhythm of Kanae’s thoughts.

"What are you thinking about?" Kanae asks like clockwork and looks down at him, haloed in warm light that softens the lines of his face into something more breakable.

"Hn?" Kuzuha asks to buy himself time from his distractions.

Kanae taps his forehead with the pen. "What's going on in here?"

"Why?"

"Just curious," he shrugs and pushes up the round spectacles perched low on his nose with his wrist. "I get so caught up in my writing that I can't tell what's real or imagination anymore."

"Real," Kuzuha tosses back nonsensically.

"Are you sure?” Kanae snorts and drops his arm across Kuzuha’s chest, the sleeve of his haori draping over him like a blanket. “You laying in my lap feels a bit unreal."

For someone who will never know death or the imminent dangers that await, nothing feels safer than here, shielded in the arms of a boy as beautiful as the moon.

"I'm not _laying_ in your _lap_ ," Kuzuha retorts stubbornly, shoving his arm away with minimal effort. "I'm taking a break."

"From?"

"Dunno. Reality."

“Exactly,” Kanae scoffs. "You make no sense."

“ _You_ make no sense,” Kuzuha twists a little to tickle his side and gets no reaction. “Like, _cents_. Broke.”

“Shut up,” Kanae laughs and goes to grab for his hand, ends up grabbing two of his fingers instead and holds on. Kuzuha hates the way his heart clenches. “Don’t be mean. I’m a writer, what do you expect?”

“Shame,” Kuzuha sighs. “You have nothing to offer me.”

“And yet you still come see me every night—”

“—a _shame,_ really.”

“Sure, sure.” 

Kanae pinches his cheek and goes back to writing, each word measured from the careful drag of his pen, crafting something a little more delicate, a little more personal. Kuzuha wonders what could possibly deserve such intimate attention but realizes a moment later that Kanae’s hand is still consciously wrapped around his own, absentminded and casual in a way that makes it painfully domestic. 

So caught up in the motions, it hits too close to a home buried in the melancholic underbelly of nostalgia. Leaving no room to overthink the itch in his palms, Kuzuha reaches up to idly play with the end of Kanae’s low ponytail, threading fingers through the soft strands before giving it a small tug. 

“How do you do it?"

"Hm?"

"Write," Kuzuha crosses his outstretched legs at the ankle and jiggles his foot around restlessly. "How do you tell a story?"

"You believe in it," Kanae answers easily.

"Even if it's a lie?"

"Even if it's in a time you don't remember."

"Is that what writers are?" Kuzuha jokes. "Con artists."

"Dreamers."

"Then how do you tell dreams from reality?"

"By never forgetting the truth that binds them."

There’s a smooth quality to Kanae’s voice that tells him of other intentions, that he’s thought about this before, the prospect of storytelling as a tool to search for what’s been lost or forgotten. Kuzuha won’t pry because though he’s known Kanae for decades, he’s only known this Kanae for a year.

"It's more fun that way, don't you think?” Kanae continues, weaving their fingers together properly, hands smaller, knuckles thicker. “Believing that every dream holds some truth, no matter how small. From this life or remnants of another."

"Sounds like a puzzle,” Kuzuha comments, washed over in a cozy warmth as he stares at their joined hands, the tiny hollow between their palms paper thin but maddening in its separation.

"Does,” Kanae agrees. “Kind of like us.”

“Nah. I ride solo.”

“Then what about me?”

“You’re—not terrible.” 

“Ooh,” Kanae coos. “Am I the exception?”

“Sounds gross if you say it like that,” Kuzuha mutters, lighthearted enough to hide the way his heart is trying to pound its way out.

Kanae slides his glasses off and places them gently on the table next to his papers. He blinks a few times, eyes holding the moonlight despite the low lighting. Tempted to get lost in them, Kuzuha holds him tighter and tries to conceal the relief that escapes his lungs in one slow, heavy breath.

“And if one day you meet someone like me?” Kanae asks with a smudge of ink on his chin.

“I already have,” Kuzuha says. It’s not a lie.

“Someone just like me?”

“No, just you.”

They say time waits for no one, but Kuzuha coasting near heaven against the person he loves, he thinks time has waited too long. Wrapping his hand around the back of his neck, Kuzuha pulls Kanae close and kisses the lost minutes off his lips.

“How is that even possible?” Kanae asks, eyes closed and breathless.

Four times Kuzuha has found Kanae in the past, and an eternity more he will find him again. 

He has, he will, he's promised.

“Because," he says. “I will never—”

  
  
  


“—let you go.”

"You better not!" Kanae cries, voice cracking. He glances down at his feet where the ground lies miles below, an entire city laid out below them and theirs for the taking. " _Kuzuha_."

"Oh, look. A yakiniku restaurant," Kuzuha drops them lower for a closer look. "You hungry?'

"No—”

"Good. Your treat."

"Don't joke," Kanae whines, gripping the arms around his torso tightly and shutting his eyes. "Shit’s not funny."

"Nah,” Kuzuha grins. “it’s hilarious.”

Kanae peeks his eyes back open and stares anxiously below like certain death awaits. Head spinning with flashing lights and moving images, Kuzuha uses that chance to rest his forehead against the back of his head and smiles quietly to himself, buried in one of his favorite spots. He takes that moment and tucks it right behind his heart where no one and nothing can find it, and if Kanae notices, he doesn’t mention it. Kuzuha’s just thankful he understands him better than even he understands himself.

This high up, he can pretend the end doesn't exist.

It takes a while, but Kanae's heartbeat eventually slows against his palm to a steadier rhythm, not quite resting but chill enough to make breathing possible again. When he opens his eyes wider, there's courage there alongside the dwindling tremble of fear, and Kuzuha bites back a triumphant smile at the small victory that mutual trust rewards.

"I got in trouble once—right there," Kanae says suddenly and points at one of the many convenience stores at the corner of its block, finger circling a vague location near the alleyway. "Sensei caught me and a few friends flipping through some porn magazines. I used all my lunch money to buy it, no splitting."

Kuzuha snorts. "Weak."

"I wanted friends so bad I told them I jacked it to Sensei, and then just like that," Kanae snaps his fingers. "She busted my ass. Real cool, too."

"Chill the fuck out," Kuzuha scrunches his nose in distaste. "Swear you're about to pop one."

"Maybe."

"I'll _drop_ you."

“I’m _kidding!_ ”

The laughter in his tone makes his eyes look like crescents as he glances up to emphasize his teasing. Kuzuha wants to kiss him. He looks away first and bites the inside of his cheek until it hurts. Pain to fight the pain, all fucked ways of coping.

“I used to ditch classes and spend all day at that arcade,” Kanae goes on and points somewhere north. "I didn't realize the time and missed dinner and ten phone calls from my mom."

"What was for dinner?"

"Leftovers, I think."

“Godly meal.”

Kuzuha folds his wings back fully to push them up higher, the gust of air ruffling Kanae's already tousled hair. With enough height, the smell of smoke and grime fades alongside human stench where oxygen seems to be fed through a straw. Instead it leaves behind an air so clear his lungs feel suffocated by wild affection and high off the lucid butterflies in his stomach.

"And there," Kanae points to a dimly lit park shrouded by trees, a pair of swings swaying in the light breeze. "I got confessed to by a girl I thought I could marry."

"When was that?"

"Few months?"

" _Ahh,_ " Kuzuha drawls. "That night you were too busy to go see the new Gintama movie with me."

"Yeah," Kanae admits sheepishly. “That one.”

"Why'd you say no?" Kuzuha asks over his shoulder, following his line of sight to the flow of traffic below, muted dots moving in sporadic patterns. Kanae’s earrings dig into his cheek.

"I don't know," Kanae's voice trails off. "My heart just wasn't in it."

"Where was it?"

"Stolen."

“Oh?”

Kanae’s heartbeat picks up again. Kuzuha can't tell whose is whose.

"But for good reason," Kanae elaborates and presses back against Kuzuha, hands tightening around his forearms. This time, not out of fear but certainty. "I think it's where it belongs."

Something about those words hit him in a place he'd forgotten, hidden somewhere so distant it leaves a crack on his carefully polished surface. He’d long since buried those expectations and selfish hopes for reciprocation back when everything around him came crumbling down, but rising from the darkest pits is the burst of relief and validation he’d spent so long protecting, ready to consume him whole.

"Marriage is overrated, anyway," Kuzuha finally says, a few pitches too high.

Kanae tuts. "You wouldn't know."

"Sure I would. I've been around."

"Yeah. Your house."

"Oi, who do you think has the upper hand here?" Kuzuha laughs loudly into the open night sky, unrestrained and youthful, floating among clouds like they’re both weightless and glowing brighter than the stars.

But when you’ve experienced falling over and over and over again in universes you’ve never really known, you know just how long it takes before you hit the ground. Loosening his grip around Kanae and ready to fly, Kuzuha would follow him to the ends of the earth—even if it meant falling alone.

"Wait _, wait_ ," Kanae yelps when he feels himself slip further. "Kuzuha, I'm—!"

  
  


"—falling in love with you."

The hot puff of words against his ear seems to peel him naked from the inside out. The more it sinks in, the less it seems like another one of Kanae’s teasing lies, the easier it is to drown in the belief of raw honesty at the tip of his tongue. Kanae draped over him like a thick comforter, the tickle of breath near his nape as he crawls into his lap, Kuzuha’s skin might melt right off in a puddle at his feet. And yet despite his seemingly collectiveness in even the oddest situations, Kuzuha can feel the nerves bursting off of Kanae in waves so molten they burn bright on shock-frozen limbs.

Kuzuha wants to reach for him but gets stopped by his own internal sludge coming to a rapid halt. The same sludge that rises when his feelings are reciprocated wholly against the lowest expectations.

But having already fallen in love with Kanae time and time again, it’s the first time these words have been said out loud, something new in a sea of repeated firsts.

“No way," Kuzuha almost scoffs, trying to worm his way out with a half-assed attempt, but Kanae is so close their bellies touch, bodies molded together down to the space between his legs like they were made to fit. “Don’t fuck with me.”

“Should I prove it?”

“No.”

Kanae shifts closer in his lap, wanting nothing more than to crawl inside his bones and disappear. The insecurities that hang in the air between them are brutal, but there’s balance in the way a million broken pieces fit together, an unspoken empathy that pumps him clean of the usual denial. 

Entire hoards of repressed things he’s saved for rarer nights, ripping off the bandaid to lick his wounds clean for new ones.

"Are you embarrassed?" Kanae asks, thighs deliberately squeezing around his waist.

He’s heavier than he looks, but the solid weight keeps Kuzuha grounded from otherwise floating away to the smell of aloe and lotion on Kanae’s pretty shoulders and hands, the spots at the backs of his knees. On anyone else, this blend of scents from expensive beauty products would be nauseating, the kind of stuff you’d find on secondhand clothing, but on Kanae, it’s a warm sense of belonging that stains beneath the skin. Like a shared sweater between lovers, Kuzuha knows he smells the same.

"You calling me weak?" Kuzuha challenges.

“I’m calling you mine," Kanae says and tosses his head back to chuckle, the tempting expanse of his neck in full view. “Nevermind, ew.”

“You—” Kuzuha grimaces but trips over his own words, the tips of his ears tingling bright red with the shame of many conflicting things. “Don’t be weird."

"Mm?" Kanae reaches up to trace the blush on his cheeks knowingly. "Are you scared?”

"Are you?"

"Shitless,” Kanae pauses, fingers dropping to his neck, idly playing with the collar of his jumper before sliding up past his racing pulse to cradle his cheek. "Somehow I get the feeling I’ve lost this before.”

“I’m not going anywhere,” Kuzuha says, trying to hide the urgency in his tone. Quickly, he amends, “I never go anywhere.”

“Lucky me,” Kanae hums and with one last laugh, moves to get off. “Sorry."

“Wait—” Kuzuha rushes and stops him with a clumsy grip to his elbow, his other hand naturally finding its way around his waist. He only barely manages to make eye contact with Kanae’s nose without wanting to burst. “Will you quit thinking so hard?”

“Depends. Will you help distract me?” Kanae whispers and takes that as his cue to push him back onto the bed by the shoulders, head hitting the pillows with an airy thump. The wicked look on his face would be more believable if it weren’t for the trembling line of his lips, that facade he always puts up only ever when he’s wavering that Kuzuha has learned to see through. A one-way mirror with Kanae as the subject. 

"Oi," he slaps Kanae’s thigh a few times. “Get off.” 

“You’re blushing,” Kanae notes, hovering over him and filling every line of sight, bangs tickling Kuzuha’s flushed cheeks. “Is it because of me? Pervert.”

"Don't get cocky.”

" _Cocky_ , huh." Kanae drops his hips pointedly and wiggles his ass. The gasp he feeds onto Kuzuha's chin makes him shiver down to his toes.

Making a grab for his wrists, Kanae pins his hands above his head, something soft but flighty in his movements as Kuzuha squirms against him, stronger than he let's on. Not that it’s anything remotely comparable, flimsy human strength against a vampire’s brawn. He could send Kanae flying through the wall if he wanted, slice through his bones with his nails like butter—Kanae knows it too. But the sad desperation glistening in his eyes takes the fight out of Kuzuha and rubs him all the wrong ways, like somehow Kanae’s convinced himself that this will be their last before they've even begun.

“ _Kanae_ ,” Kuzuha warns in a stern tone, shoving him away with a hand clasped low on his neck to put space between them.

What he gets in return is a full body shiver so needful it lights a match to all the heat built up in between. Because Kanae loves to fuck around and push buttons that shouldn’t be touched, but he loves it even more when he can get a reaction out of it, a fight to the top that he doesn’t mind forfeiting for the sake of playful scolding, even better if it’s sincere. Because Kanae yearns to be loved so hard it hurts, and aggression is the finger pressed against a newly formed bruise that soaks up all the pain.

“Jesus,” Kuzuha huffs, throat dry. "I thought you were a fucking _sadist_ , not—you like that?”

Kanae is quiet as he wraps his hands around Kuzuha’s wrist with a shaky exhale that tickles down his forearm, caught in the crook of an elbow with nowhere else to go. Kuzuha digs his fingers harder in a sudden urge to feed his curiosity before belatedly realizing the situation and abruptly releases his hold, the white imprint of his hand stained onto his skin before the blood rushes back.

"You can touch me," Kanae reassures, guiding his hand back to his neck, the other to his cheek. "I won't break."

Kuzuha's hands are shaking where his thumb presses against the racing pulse in his neck.

"I can break you," Kuzuha says and slides his hand down to Kanae's beating chest. "I can break you right here."

In a different universe, Kuzuha tells Kanae he loves him in a voice so quiet it may as well have been swallowed. In another, it’s a mutual understanding of words left unspoken through a mess of tangled limbs and body sounds. But in this universe, it’s Kuzuha thinking about the prospect of not telling Kanae for the sake of happiness upon ignorance.

"Then do it," Kanae urges, shoulders straight and braced for the blow. "I won't mind."

There’s something to be mourned when hope is muddled in doubt, bowing down in surrender with battered palms and knees on the floor just as Kanae is now. Kuzuha doesn’t know how to tell him he’s fallen in love with him every morning since the day they met lifetimes ago, but he does know,

"I'll always be here even when you're gone."

The second heartbreak is the silent understanding that follows.

Because in this lifetime, Kanae knows more than he should, knows a thing or two about immortality and reincarnation and the history that binds them. He doesn't cry, but the way he falls forward to drop his forehead against Kuzuha’s chest—tears can’t be felt when you’re already drowning.

Burying his hand in the brown fabric of his sweater, Kuzuha holds on till the tension in Kanae’s muscles loosens its vice-like grip, returning to his usual affectionate self that clings too close and all at once. Fighting to stay awake, little noises bubbling from his throat and hardly coherent, Kuzuha uses that chance.

“Me too,” he answers to the ghost of their earlier conversation and leaves it at that.

“What was that?” Kanae shifts, chin digging into his sternum. 

For once, his eyelids are heavier than his heart, something he won’t feel guilty relenting to.

"Nothing," Kuzuha says. “I’ll meet you—”

  
  
  


“In your dreams,” Kuzuha grunts, voice thick with sleep. Kanae's voice sounds far away in the groggy haze, so Kuzuha's subconscious tries to reach for it.

“But it’s so hot,” Kanae whines, wiggling into his space. “And dead bodies feel like ice.”

“I’m not dead,” Kuzuha nudges him off, mildly offended. “I’m _un_ dead. ‘S different.”

“Semantics.”

“Facts.”

“Can I at least rest my forehead on your back?" Kanae groans. Kuzuha can hear the pout in it.

"Too fuckin’ sweaty," Kuzuha grumbles when Kanae slings a leg around his calf, his skin hot and discomforting in its humidity. “Shit, you running a fever?”

“Think I’m dying, actually.”

It's an obvious exaggeration that Kuzuha takes in jest, but still those words sting like a knife twisting slowly through his chest, piercing all the parts of him he's spent years tucking into heart shaped boxes. Kuzuha tightens his fist hard against his belly, nails digging into the skin to try and itch the sudden worry he feels all over. Kanae had always been quick to catch all sorts of illnesses, and Kuzuha likes to keep that risk at minimum.

"Ku-chan."

“ _Annoying_ ,” Kuzuha grunts and turns on his side to face Kanae, who’s persistently sharing his pillow against the logic of current circumstances like a goof. A flash of heat rushes up his neck when he finds Kanae staring back, pale moonlight fondly cradling half of him, reminding Kuzuha that Kanae belonged to him only in fragments but to the world as a whole.

"So annoying," Kuzuha repeats and reaches out to squish his face, his lips sticking out like a fish. “Know that?"

"Mmph."

Kanae is right there, but Kuzuha misses him so much it hurts. 

Loosening his hold, he smooths his hand along the side of his face and flattens a cool palm to his temple, thumb tucking along the bridge of his nose and running gently over an eyelid. Kanae nuzzles against the touch with a satisfied sigh that seems to deflate him entirely, a shiver running through the undercurrents of his veins that buzzes vibrant and redeeming. Like all the air’s left him with nothing but clouds. Like he could disappear without notice. 

“That feels so good,” Kanae groans suggestively.

“ _Chill_ ,” Kuzuha rolls his eyes but his tone is so gentle he can barely hear himself over Kanae’s purring. “Get your fucking air conditioner fixed.”

“Too lazy,” Kanae says cutely, shifting against the pillow. "Kidding. Someone's coming out to look at it next week."

"Good," Kuzuha tuts, pushing the damp strands of hair away from Kanae's forehead, piece by piece. Any excuse to touch him without admitting too much, too soon. There's a dent in his fringe from the hair clip he'd been wearing all day. "Who has a home this nice with a broken cooling system?"

"You're always here," Kanae argues. "Why don't you get it fixed?"

"Not my home, not my responsibility."

"Basically your home."

Kuzuha shrugs. "If that's what home means to you."

Their knees bump beneath the comforter and strikes him like a rubber band stretched between two repelling poles. The further the distance, the higher the tension, the greater the chances are it'll snap. But for all that it’s worth, Kuzuha loves him to pieces anyway, no matter how far they stray or how close they gravitate.

For all that it’s worth, Kuzuha would surrender his all if Kanae asked.

"Sure," Kanae smiles into their pillow, and Kuzuha feels his heart burst into a million red fragments. "But you know, you're my—"

  
  
  


"Home."

"What are you doing there?" Kuzuha frowns, shifting the phone to his other ear, cheek glowing blue and white from the cracked screen. "The shield is closing soon. We need to move."

Here, at the end of the world with only one thing left to lose, Kuzuha clings onto the optimism in the world they've created to take them to greater heights.

"Chicken and cookies," Kanae says flatly. He can hear the smile in his voice, the same one he always hears over the phone whenever they talk, round and slightly breathless, the tiny laugh behind each syllable that almost slips out. He says. "Let's try it."

Kuzuha thinks he's gone mad.

"What?"

“You don’t remember?”

Kuzuha crosses the empty street, dodging abandoned objects scattered across the ground. A surefire sign of evacuation. There isn’t a single soul in sight, and panic starts to rise in his chest where something fluttery and kind filled only moments ago when he saw Kanae’s name flash across his screen.

"Now's not the time," Kuzuha balks.

“If not now, then when?” Kanae sounds amused. “How optimistic of you.”

“Look, we have all the time in the world," Kuzuha retorts confidently, skipping the last two steps on a small flight of stairs. "Know why? 'Cause I'm the king of these parts."

"Surely not in this lifetime," Kanae doubts. "It's the end of the fucking world."

"It's the end of _this_ world," Kuzuha argues. "We'll just have to make a new one. Easy."

"Ah."

"Huh?"

"You've gone crazy."

Kuzuha can't help but grin at that, passing by a billboard promoting the latest single of some idol group called _ChroNoiR_.

"Funny. I just thought the same about you."

"I'm not crazy," Kanae denies. "I just trust you too much."

"And that's why you're crazy."

Kuzuha hears a rustling on the other end that sounds like plastic. The city alarm goes off loudly as another minute passes by and startles him off his feet.

"Hear that?" Kuzuha says in a hurry. "Get your ass over here."

"Okay, Chief.”

But crossing through the strip into the clearing and nearly tripping over a kicked up floor mat, Kuzuha stops in his tracks and nearly drops his phone. Perched atop the railing across from him is Kanae with the loveliest smile, suited up and ready to leave this world behind.

"Idiot!" Kuzuha shouts and paces forward with his shoulders slumped, trying to hide the burst of relief that tingles in the pit of his stomach, the weight that visibly leaves him. "I thought you said you were home."

Kanae standing there, phone still pressed to his ear with a grocery bag of food in his lap, watching him like he's found a world that will never end, he says, "I am."

  
  


(It smells like vanilla.

Kanae gives his sleep induced brain a few minutes to catch up, soaking deep in that post sleep phase where he spends too long wondering if he should succumb back into it for another hour or two.

It still smells like vanilla.

Surrendering to at least the morning grog, he shuts his eyes tighter to block out the sunlight fighting its way past his eyelids. It’s been awhile since he slept this well, this long, without any breaks in between, and his bones have finally stopped itching from consecutive restless nights. Blanket pulled to his chin, Kanae shifts to release his arm and knocks his forehead against something solid.

Kuzuha.

Kanae sighs deeply and feels his lungs shake from the heft of it, a cough bubbling up his throat that he struggles to suppress. Head swimming with visceral remnants of last night’s dream, this reality doesn’t feel real in comparison. Because when dreams feel like memories, you can’t help but to believe the emotions embedded in the seconds that feel like hours, bound to an alternate universe where you felt joy in someone’s embrace or guilt from your own mistakes. Not knowing why except that it gets your heart pounding even after you’ve woken up.

Leaning away from Kuzuha’s chest, Kanae watches him in his sleep a short breadth apart, the slight twitch at the corner of his lip, swollen and pink from a full night’s rest. Looking so perfectly kissable, a single fang peeking out through the gap of his mouth, Kanae knows Kuzuha tastes sweet on any given day and chews on his own bottom lip to stave off any urges to have a bite so soon.

It’s early morning after an entire night spent with Kuzuha, and yet Kanae feels a strange need to burrow closer. Blames his dreams for the way he aches bright red and so full of love.

“Quit staring.”

Kanae startles, eyes shooting up from his mouth as Kuzuha turns his head to press his face into the pillow, muffling a husky groan. The back of his hair sticks up wildly, and Kanae chuckles and smooths down the silvery strands.

“You were drooling,” Kanae rasps to cover up the fact. “Good morning.”

“Nn.”

“You going back to sleep?”

“Nn.”

Kanae leans in close to press their foreheads together and tenderly nuzzles the tip of his nose against Kuzuha’s cheek, curled up like lazy cats in a patch of sunlight. Mornings make Kuzuha impossibly soft and pliant, his basic motor functions lagging and ebbing the usual shyness away, and Kanae will never pass up a chance to cling to every corner of him to dust off all the untouched shelves. Holds the parts of him Kanae knows only he can reach.

“Kuzuha,” he calls gently with a lilt in the last syllable, barely above a hushed whisper.

“Hm?” Kuzuha rolls onto his belly and stretches his arms overhead, pressing into Kanae’s space. Shoulders nearly stacked, wings propped off to one side and tangled in the blanket, he’s the image of a boyish, laidback ease without a care in the world, scratching at his back with pointy claws and yawning hugely in Kanae’s face. Skin like vanilla, tongue like strawberries, Kanae can’t imagine a single lifetime without him.

His only constant even when the sun goes down.

"I just had the craziest dream,” Kanae says.

Somehow it feels like he’s said this before.

“Tell me about it,” Kuzuha says.

And somehow, he’s probably known it all along.)

**Author's Note:**

> [/cue end credits/](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AOfJ-fdHM2k&ab_channel=xxveggyxx)
> 
> happy (late) valentine's day to these precious bebs, i've already prepared a coffin for their next song release 🤙
> 
> also i finally created a [twitter](https://twitter.com/inklingaway) so feel free to follow! let's be friends yehhh :)
> 
> thank you!


End file.
